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Table of Contents
Preface ................................................................................................................................... viii
1. Foreword .................................................................................................................... viii
2. Who should read this document? ....................................................................................... ix
3. Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... x
4. About this document ....................................................................................................... xi
5. Where to get the latest copy of this document? .................................................................... xii
6. Providing feedback about this document ........................................................................... xiii
1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 1
1.1. What is Ethereal? .......................................................................................................... 1
1.1.1. Some intended purposes ....................................................................................... 1
1.1.2. Features ............................................................................................................ 1
1.1.3. Live capture from many different network media ...................................................... 2
1.1.4. Import files from many other capture programs ........................................................ 2
1.1.5. Export files for many other capture programs ........................................................... 2
1.1.6. Many protocol decoders ....................................................................................... 3
1.1.7. Open Source Software ......................................................................................... 3
1.1.8. What Ethereal is not ............................................................................................ 3
1.2. Platforms Ethereal runs on .............................................................................................. 4
1.2.1. Unix ................................................................................................................. 4
1.2.2. Linux ............................................................................................................... 4
1.2.3. Microsoft Windows ............................................................................................. 5
1.3. Where to get Ethereal? ................................................................................................... 6
1.4. A rose by any other name ............................................................................................... 7
1.5. A brief history of Ethereal ............................................................................................... 8
1.6. Development and maintenance of Ethereal ......................................................................... 9
1.7. Reporting problems and getting help ............................................................................... 10
1.7.1. Website .......................................................................................................... 10
1.7.2. Wiki ............................................................................................................... 10
1.7.3. FAQ ............................................................................................................... 10
1.7.4. Mailing Lists ................................................................................................... 10
1.7.5. Reporting Problems ........................................................................................... 11
1.7.6. Reporting Crashes on UNIX/Linux platforms ......................................................... 11
1.7.7. Reporting Crashes on Windows platforms ............................................................. 12
2. Building and Installing Ethereal ................................................................................................ 14
2.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................... 14
2.2. Obtaining the source and binary distributions .................................................................... 15
2.3. Before you build Ethereal under UNIX ............................................................................ 16
2.4. Building Ethereal from source under UNIX ...................................................................... 19
2.5. Installing the binaries under UNIX ................................................................................. 21
2.5.1. Installing from rpm's under RedHat and alike ......................................................... 21
2.5.2. Installing from deb's under Debian ....................................................................... 21
2.6. Troubleshooting during the install on Unix ....................................................................... 22
2.7. Building from source under Windows ............................................................................. 23
2.8. Installing Ethereal under Windows ................................................................................. 24
2.8.1. Install Ethereal ................................................................................................. 24
2.8.2. Install WinPcap ................................................................................................ 25
2.8.3. Update Ethereal ................................................................................................ 26
2.8.4. Update WinPcap ............................................................................................... 26
2.8.5. Uninstall Ethereal ............................................................................................. 27
2.8.6. Uninstall WinPcap ............................................................................................ 27
3. User Interface ....................................................................................................................... 29
3.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................... 29
3.2. Start Ethereal .............................................................................................................. 30
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Preface
1. Foreword
Ethereal is one of those programs that many network managers would love to be able to use, but they are
often prevented from getting what they would like from Ethereal because of the lack of documentation.
This document is part of an effort by the Ethereal team to improve the usability of Ethereal.
We hope that you find it useful, and look forward to your comments.
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Preface
ix
Preface
3. Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the whole Ethereal team for their assistance. In particular, the authors
would like to thank:
Gerald Combs, for initiating the Ethereal project and funding to do this documentation.
Guy Harris, for many helpful hints and a great deal of patience in reviewing this document.
Gilbert Ramirez, for general encouragement and helpful hints along the way.
The authors would also like to thank the following people for their helpful feedback on this document:
Pat Eyler, for his suggestions on improving the example on generating a backtrace.
The authors would like to acknowledge those man page and README authors for the ethereal project
from who sections of this document borrow heavily:
Scott Renfro from whose mergecap man page Section C.6, mergecap: Merging multiple capture
files into one is derived.
Ashok Narayanan from whose text2pcap man page Section C.7, text2pcap: Converting ASCII
hexdumps to network captures is derived.
Frank Singleton from whose README.idl2eth Section C.8, idl2eth: Creating dissectors from
Corba IDL files is derived.
Preface
This is a warning!
You should pay attention to a warning, as otherwise data loss might occur.
This is a note!
A note will point you to common mistakes and things that might not be obvious.
This is a tip!
Tips will be helpful for your everyday work using Ethereal.
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Preface
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Chapter 1. Introduction
1.1. What is Ethereal?
Ethereal is a network packet analyzer. A network packet analyzer will try to capture network packets
and tries to display that packet data as detailed as possible.
You could think of a network packet analyzer as a measuring device used to examine what's going on
inside a network cable, just like a voltmeter is used by an electrician to examine what's going on inside
an electric cable (but at a higher level, of course).
In the past, such tools were either very expensive, proprietary, or both. However, with the advent of Ethereal, all that has changed.
Ethereal is perhaps one of the best open source packet analyzers available today.
Beside these examples, Ethereal can be helpful in many other situations too.
1.1.2. Features
The following are some of the many features Ethereal provides:
Import and Export packet data from and to a lot of other capture programs.
Introduction
However, to really appreciate its power, you have to start using it.
Figure 1.1, Ethereal captures packets and allows you to examine their content. shows Ethereal having
captured some packets and waiting for you to examine them.
Figure 1.1. Ethereal captures packets and allows you to examine their content.
Introduction
Ethereal isn't an intrusion detection system. It will not warn you when someone does strange things
on your network that he/she isn't allowed to do. However, if strange things happen, Ethereal might
help you figure out what is really going on.
Ethereal will not manipulate things on the network, it will only "measure" things from it. Ethereal
doesn't send packets on the network or do other active things (except for name resolutions, but even
that can be disabled).
Introduction
1.2.1. Unix
Apple Mac OS X
BeOS
FreeBSD
HP-UX
IBM AIX
NetBSD
OpenBSD
SCO UnixWare/OpenUnix
SGI Irix
Sun Solaris/Intel
Sun Solaris/Sparc
1.2.2. Linux
Debian GNU/Linux
Gentoo Linux
Mandrake Linux
PLD Linux
Rock Linux
Introduction
Slackware Linux
Suse Linux
Windows Me / 98
Windows CE
Windows NT / XP Embedded
Windows 95 is no longer actively maintained by WinPcap, but still may work perfectly
Please provide your experiences about these fresh versions to: ethereal-dev[AT]ethereal.com.
Introduction
Introduction
Introduction
Introduction
Other people who find your contributions useful will appreciate them, and you will know that you
have helped people in the same way that the developers of Ethereal have helped people.
The developers of Ethereal might improve your changes even more, as there's always room for improvements. Or they may implement some advanced things on top of your code, which can be useful
for yourself too.
The maintainers and developers of Ethereal will maintain your code as well, fixing it when API
changes or other changes are made, and generally keeping it in tune with what is happening with
Ethereal. So if Ethereal is updated (which is done often), you can get a new Ethereal version from
the website and your changes will already be included without any effort for you.
The Ethereal source code and binary kits for some platforms are all available on the download page of
the Ethereal website: http://www.ethereal.com/download.html.
Introduction
1.7.1. Website
You will find lot's of useful information on the Ethereal homepage at http://www.ethereal.com.
1.7.2. Wiki
The Ethereal Wiki at http://wiki.ethereal.com provides a wide range of information related to Ethereal
and packet capturing in general. You will find a lot of information not part of this user's guide. For example, there is an explanation how to capture on a switched network, an ongoing effort to build a protocol reference and a lot more.
And best of all, if you would like to contribute your knowledge on a specific topic (maybe a network
protocol you know well), you can edit the wiki pages by simply using your webbrowser.
1.7.3. FAQ
The "Frequently Asked Questions" will list often asked questions and the corresponding answers.
This mailing list will inform you about new program releases, which usually
appear about every 4-8 weeks.
ethereal-users
This list is for users of Ethereal. People post questions about building and
using Ethereal, others (hopefully) provide answers.
ethereal-dev
This list is for Ethereal developers. If you want to start developing a protocol dissector, join this list.
You can subscribe to each of these lists from the Ethereal web site: http://www.ethereal.com. Simply select the mailing lists link on the left hand side of the site. The lists are archived at the Ethereal web site
as well.
Tip!
10
Introduction
You can search in the list archives to see if someone asked the same question some time
before and maybe already got an answer. That way you don't have to wait until someone
answers your question.
The version number of Ethereal and the dependent libraries linked with it, eg GTK+, etc. You can
obtain this with the command ethereal -v.
2.
3.
4.
If you get an error/warning message, copy the text of that message (and also a few lines before and
after it, if there are some), so others may find the place where things go wrong. Please don't give
something like: "I get a warning while doing x" as this won't give a good idea where to look at.
$ gdb `whereis ethereal | cut -f2 -d: | cut -d' ' -f2` core >& bt.txt
backtrace
^D
$
11
Introduction
Note
Type the characters in the first line verbatim! Those are back-tics there!
Note
backtrace is a gdb command. You should enter it verbatim after the first line shown above,
but it will not be echoed. The ^D (Control-D, that is, press the Control key and the D key
together) will cause gdb to exit. This will leave you with a file called bt.txt in the current directory. Include the file with your bug report.
Note
If you do not have gdb available, you will have to check out your operating system's debugger.
You should mail the traceback to the ethereal-dev[AT]ethereal.com mailing list.
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Introduction
13
Chapter 2.
Ethereal
Building
and
Installing
2.1. Introduction
As with all things, there must be a beginning, and so it is with Ethereal. To use Ethereal, you must:
Obtain the source and build Ethereal for your operating system.
Currently, only two or three Linux distributions ship Ethereal, and they are commonly shipping an outof-date version. No other versions of UNIX ship Ethereal so far, and Microsoft does not ship it with any
version of Windows. For that reason, you will need to know where to get the latest version of Ethereal
and how to install it.
This chapter shows you how to obtain source and binary packages, and how to build Ethereal from
source, should you choose to do so.
The following are the general steps you would use:
1.
Download the relevant package for your needs, e.g. source or binary distribution.
2.
Build the source into a binary, if you have downloaded the source.
This may involve building and/or installing other necessary packages.
3.
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2.2. Obtaining
distributions
the
source
and
binary
You can obtain both source and binary distributions from the Ethereal web site: http://www.ethereal.com. Simply select the download link, and then select either the source package or
binary package of your choice from the mirror site closest to you.
Note!
While you will find a number of binary packages available on the Ethereal web site, you
might not find one for your platform, and they often tend to be several versions behind the
current released version, as they are contributed by people who have the platforms they are
built for.
For this reason, you might want to pull down the source distribution and build it, as the
process is relatively simple.
15
Depending on your system, you may be able to install these from binaries, e.g. RPMs, or you may need
to obtain them in source code form and build them.
If you have downloaded the source for GTK+, the instructions shown in Example 2.1, Building GTK+
from source may provide some help in building it:
Note!
You may need to change the version number of gtk+ in Example 2.1, Building GTK+
from source to match the version of GTK+ you have downloaded. The directory you
change to will change if the version of GTK+ changes, and in all cases, tar xvf - will show
you the name of the directory you should change to.
Note!
If you use Linux, or have GNU tar installed, you can use tar zxvf gtk+-1.2.10.tar.gz. It is
also possible to use gunzip -c or gzcat rather than gzip -dc on many UNIX systems.
Note!
If you downloaded gtk+ or any other tar file using Windows, you may find your file called
gtk+-1_2_8_tar.gz.
16
You should consult the GTK+ web site if any errors occur in carrying out the instructions in Example 2.1, Building GTK+ from source.
If you have downloaded the source to libpcap, the general instructions shown in Example 2.2, Building
and installing libpcap will assist in building it. Also, if your operating system does not support tcpdump, you might also want to download it from the tcpdump web site and install it.
Note!
The directory you should change to will depend on the version of libpcap you have downloaded. In all cases, tar xvf - will show you the name of the directory that has been unpacked.
When installing the include files, you might get the error shown in Example 2.3, Errors while installing
the libpcap include files when you submit the command make install-incl.
If you do, simply create the missing directory with the following command:
mkdir /usr/local/include/net
and rerun the command make install-incl.
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Under RedHat 6.x and beyond (and distributions based on it, like Mandrake) you can simply install each
of the packages you need from RPMs. Most Linux systems will install GTK+ and GLib in anycase,
however, you will probably need to install the devel versions of each of these packages. The commands
shown in Example 2.4, Installing required RPMs under RedHat Linux 6.2 and beyond will install all
the needed RPMs if they are not already installed.
Example 2.4. Installing required RPMs under RedHat Linux 6.2 and beyond
cd /mnt/cdrom/RedHat/RPMS
rpm -ivh glib-1.2.6-3.i386.rpm
rpm -ivh glib-devel-1.2.6-3.i386.rpm
rpm -ivh gtk+-1.2.6-7.i386.rpm
rpm -ivh gtk+-devel-1.2.6-7.i386.rpm
rpm -ivh libpcap-0.4-19.i386.rpm
Note
If you are using a version of RedHat later than 6.2, the required RPMs have most likely
changed. Simply use the correct RPMs from your distribution.
Under Debian you can install Ethereal using apt-get. apt-get will handle any dependency issues for you.
Example 2.5, Installing debs under Debian shows how to do this.
18
Unpack the source from its gzip'd tar file. If you are using Linux, or your version of UNIX uses
GNU tar, you can use the following command:
tar zxvf ethereal-0.10.12-tar.gz
For other versions of UNIX, You will want to use the following commands:
gzip -d ethereal-0.10.12-tar.gz
tar xvf ethereal-0.10.12-tar
Note!
The pipeline gzip -dc ethereal-0.10.12-tar.gz | tar xvf - will work here as well.
Note!
If you have downloaded the Ethereal tarball under Windows, you may find that your
browser has created a file with underscores rather than periods in its file name.
2.
3.
Configure your source so it will build correctly for your version of UNIX. You can do this with the
following command:
./configure
If this step fails, you will have to rectify the problems and rerun configure. Troubleshooting hints
are provided in Section 2.6, Troubleshooting during the install on Unix.
4.
Build the sources into a binary, with the make command. For example:
make
5.
19
Once you have installed Ethereal with make install above, you should be able to run it by entering ethereal.
20
21
22
23
binary
installer
of
Ethereal
named
something
like:
ethereal-
Simply download the Ethereal installer from: http://www.ethereal.com/download.html#releases and execute it.
Note!
Since Ethereal Version 0.10.12, the WinPcap installer has become part of the main
Ethereal installer, so you don't need to download and install two separate packages
any longer!
/S runs the installer or uninstaller silently with default values. Please note: The silent installer won't
install WinPCap!
/desktopicon installation of the desktop icon, =yes - force installation, =no - don't install, otherwise
use defaults / user settings. This option is available since 0.10.13 an can be useful for a silent installer.
/quicklaunchicon installation of the quick launch icon, =yes - force installation, =no - don't install,
otherwise use defaults / user settings. This option is available since 0.10.13 an can be useful for a silent installer.
/D sets the default installation directory ($INSTDIR), overriding InstallDir and InstallDirRegKey. It
must be the last parameter used in the command line and must not contain any quotes, even if the
path contains spaces.
Example:
2.8.1.2. Components
Beside the usual installer options like where to install the program, there are several optional components.
24
Tip!
If you are unsure which settings to select, just keep the default settings.
The Components (both Ethereal GTK1 and 2 cannot be installed at the same time):
Etheral GTK2 - Ethereal is a GUI network protocol analyzer (using the modern GTK2 GUI toolkit,
recommended).
GTK-Wimp - GTKWimp is the GTK2 windows impersonator (native Win32 look and feel, recommended).
Mate - Meta Analysis and Tracing Engine - user configurable extension(s) of the display filter engine, see http://wiki.ethereal.com/Mate for details.
The Tools:
Editcap - Editcap is a program that reads a capture file and writes some or all of the packets into another capture file.
Text2Pcap - Text2pcap is a program that reads in an ASCII hex dump and writes the data into a
libpcap-style capture file.
Mergecap - Mergecap is a program that combines multiple saved capture files into a single output
file.
Quick Launch Icon - add an Ethereal icon to the Explorer quick launch toolbar.
Associate file extensions to Ethereal - Associate standard network trace files to Ethereal.
As mentioned above, the Ethereal installer (since version 0.10.12) takes care of the installation of WinPcap, so usually you don't have to worry about WinPcap at all!
If you do not have WinPcap installed you will be able to open saved capture files, but you will not be
able to capture live network traffic.
While running, the Ethereal installer detects which WinPcap version is currently installed and will install WinPcap, if none or an older version is detected.
More WinPcap info:
At the download page you will find a single installer exe called something like "auto-installer", which
can be installed under various Windows systems, including 9x/Me/NT4.0/2000/XP.
Warning!
If you have an older version of WinPcap installed, you must un-install it before installing
the current version. Recent versions of the WinPcap installer will take care of this.
26
Note!
After uninstallation of WinPcap you can't capture anything with Ethereal.
It might be a good idea to reboot Windows afterwards.
27
28
29
User Interface
Tip!
When starting Ethereal it's possible to specify optional settings using the command line.
See Section 9.2, Start Ethereal from the command line for details.
Note!
In the following chapters, a lot of screenshots from Ethereal will be shown. As Ethereal
runs on many different platforms and there are different versions of the underlying GUI
toolkit (GTK 1.x / 2.x) used, your screen might look different from the provided screenshots. But as there are no real differences in functionality, these screenshots should still be
well understandable.
30
User Interface
Ethereal's main window consist of parts that are commonly known from many other GUI programs.
1.
The menu (see Section 3.4, The Menu) is used to start actions.
2.
The main toolbar (see Section 3.13, The "Main" toolbar) provides quick access to frequently
used items from the menu.
3.
The filter toolbar (see Section 3.14, The "Filter" toolbar) provides a way to directly manipulate
the currently used display filter (see Section 6.2, Filtering packets while viewing).
4.
The packet list pane (see Section 3.15, The "Packet List" pane) displays a summary of each packet captured. By clicking on packets in this pane you control what is displayed in the other two
panes.
5.
The packet details pane (see Section 3.16, The "Packet Details" pane) displays the packet selected in the packet list pane in more detail.
31
User Interface
6.
The packet bytes pane (see Section 3.17, The "Packet Bytes" pane) displays the data from the
packet selected in the packet list pane, and highlights the field selected in the packet details pane.
7.
The statusbar (see Section 3.18, The Statusbar) shows some detailed information about the current program state and the captured data.
Tip!
The layout of the main window can be customized by changing preference settings. See
Section 9.5, Preferences for details!
32
User Interface
Note!
Menu items will be greyed out if the corresponding feature isn't available. For example,
you cannot save a capture file if you didn't capture or load any data before.
This menu contains items to open and merge capture files, save / print / export capture
files in whole or in part, and to quit from Ethereal. See Section 3.5, The "File" menu.
Edit
This menu contains items to find a packet, time reference or mark one or more packets,
set your preferences, (cut, copy, and paste are not presently implemented). See Section 3.6, The "Edit" menu.
View
This menu controls the display of the captured data, including the colorization of packets, zooming the font, show a packet in a separate window, expand and collapse trees
in packet details, .... See Section 3.7, The "View" menu.
Go
This menu contains items to go to a specific packet. See Section 3.8, The "Go"
menu.
Capture
This menu allows you to start and stop captures and to edit capture filters. See Section 3.9, The "Capture" menu.
Analyze
This menu contains items to manipulate display filters, enable or disable the dissection
of protocols, configure user specified decodes and follow a TCP stream. See Section 3.10, The "Analyze" menu.
Statistics
This menu contains menu-items to display various statistic windows, including a summary of the packets that have been captured, display protocol hierarchy statistics and
much more. See Section 3.11, The "Statistics" menu.
Help
This menu contains items to help the user, like access to some basic help, a list of the
supported protocols, manual pages, online access to some of the webpages, and the
usual about dialog. See Section 3.12, The "Help" menu.
Each of these menu items is described in more detail in the sections that follow.
Tip!
You can access menu items directly or by pressing the corresponding accelerator keys,
which are shown at the right side of the menu. For example, you can press the Control (or
Strg in German) and the K keys together to open the capture dialog.
33
User Interface
Accelerator
Open...
Ctrl+O
Description
This menu item brings up the file open dialog box that allows you to load a
capture file for viewing. It is discussed in more detail in Section 5.2.1, The
"Open Capture File" dialog box.
Open Recent
This menu item shows a submenu containing the recently opened capture
files. Clicking on one of the submenu items will open the corresponding capture file directly.
Merge...
This menu item brings up the merge file dialog box that allows you to merge
a capture file into the currently loaded one. It is discussed in more detail in
Section 5.4, Merging capture files.
34
User Interface
Menu Item
Accelerator
Close
Ctrl+W
Description
This menu item closes the current capture. If you haven't saved the capture,
you will be asked to do so first (this can be disabled by a preference setting).
-----Save
Ctrl+S
This menu item saves the current capture. If you have not set a default capture file name (perhaps with the -w <capfile> option), Ethereal pops up the
Save Capture File As dialog box (which is discussed further in Section 5.3.1,
The "Save Capture File As" dialog box).
Note!
If you have already saved the current capture, this menu item
will be greyed out.
Note!
You cannot save a live capture while it is in progress. You must
stop the capture in order to save.
Save As...
Shift+Ctrl+S
This menu item allows you to save the current capture file to whatever file
you would like. It pops up the Save Capture File As dialog box (which is discussed further in Section 5.3.1, The "Save Capture File As" dialog box).
This menu item allows you to show a list of files in a file set. It pops up the
Ethereal List File Set dialog box (which is discussed further in Section 5.5,
File Sets).
If the currently loaded file is part of a file set, jump to the next file in the set.
If it isn't part of a file set or just the last file in that set, this item is greyed out.
If the currently loaded file is part of a file set, jump to the previous file in the
set. If it isn't part of a file set or just the first file in that set, this item is greyed
out.
-----Export
"Plain
file...
> as
Text"
Export > as
"PostScript"
file...
Export > as
"CSV"
(Comma Separated Values
packet
sum-
This menu item allows you to export all, or some, of the packets in the capture file to a plain ASCII text file. It pops up the Ethereal Export dialog box
(which is discussed further in Section 5.6.1, The "Export as Plain Text File"
dialog box).
This menu item allows you to export the (or some) of the packets in the capture file to a PostScript file. It pops up the Ethereal Export dialog box (which
is discussed further in Section 5.6.2, The "Export as PostScript File" dialog
box).
This menu item allows you to export the (or some) of the packet summaries
in the capture file to a .csv file (e.g. used by spreadsheet programs). It pops
up the Ethereal Export dialog box (which is discussed further in Section 5.6.3, The "Export as CSV (Comma Seperated Values) File" dialog
35
User Interface
Menu Item
Accelerator
mary) file...
Description
box).
Export > as
"PSML" file...
This menu item allows you to export the (or some) of the packets in the capture file to a PSML (packet summary markup language) XML file. It pops up
the Ethereal Export dialog box (which is discussed further in Section 5.6.4,
The "Export as PSML File" dialog box).
Export > as
"PDML" file...
This menu item allows you to export the (or some) of the packets in the capture file to a PDML (packet details markup language) XML file. It pops up
the Ethereal Export dialog box (which is discussed further in Section 5.6.5,
The "Export as PDML File" dialog box).
This menu item allows you to export the currently selected bytes in the packet bytes pane to a binary file. It pops up the Ethereal Export dialog box
(which is discussed further in Section 5.6.6, The "Export selected packet
bytes" dialog box)
-----Print...
Ctrl+P
This menu item allows you to print all (or some of) the packets in the capture
file. It pops up the Ethereal Print dialog box (which is discussed further in
Section 5.7, Printing packets).
-----Quit
Ctrl+Q
This menu item allows you to quit from Ethereal. Ethereal will ask to save
your capture file if you haven't saved it before (this can be disabled by a preference setting).
36
User Interface
Accelerator
Find Packet...
Ctrl+F
Description
This menu item brings up a dialog box that allows you to find a packet by
many criteria. There is further information on finding packets in Section 6.6,
Finding packets.
Find Next
Ctrl+N
This menu item tries to find the next packet matching the settings from "Find
Packet...".
Find Previous
Ctrl+B
This menu item tries to find the previous packet matching the settings from
"Find Packet...".
------
37
User Interface
Menu Item
Accelerator
Description
This menu item set a time reference on the currently selected packet. See
Section 6.9.1, Packet time referencing for more information about the time
referenced packets.
Time Reference
> Find Next
This menu item tries to find the next time referenced packet.
Time Reference
> Find Previous
This menu item tries to find the previous time referenced packet.
This menu item "marks" the currently selected packet. See Section 6.8,
Marking packets for details.
Unmark
Packets
All
-----Preferences...
Shift+Ctrl+P
This menu item brings up a dialog box that allows you to set preferences for
many parameters that control Ethereal. You can also save your preferences so
Ethereal will use them the next time you start it. More detail is provided in
Section 9.5, Preferences.
38
User Interface
Accelerator
Description
Main Toolbar
This menu item hides or shows the main toolbar, see Section 3.13, The
"Main" toolbar.
Filter Toolbar
This menu item hides or shows the filter toolbar, see Section 3.14, The "Filter" toolbar.
Statusbar
This menu item hides or shows the statusbar, see Section 3.18, The Statusbar.
-----Packet List
This menu item hides or shows the packet list pane, see Section 3.15, The
39
User Interface
Menu Item
Accelerator
Description
"Packet List" pane.
Packet Details
This menu item hides or shows the packet details pane, see Section 3.16,
The "Packet Details" pane.
Packet Bytes
This menu item hides or shows the packet bytes pane, see Section 3.17, The
"Packet Bytes" pane.
-----Time Display
Format > Time
of Day
Selecting this tells Ethereal to display time stamps in time of day format, see
Section 6.9, Time display formats and time references.
Note!
The fields "Time of Day", "Date and Time of Day", "Seconds
Since Beginning of Capture" and "Seconds Since Previous
Packet" are mutually exclusive.
Time Display
Format > Date
and Time of
Day
Selecting this tells Ethereal to display the time stamps in date and time of day
format, see Section 6.9, Time display formats and time references.
Time Display
Format
>
Seconds Since
Beginning
of
Capture
Selecting this tells Ethereal to display time stamps in seconds since beginning
of capture format, see Section 6.9, Time display formats and time references.
Time Display
Format
>
Seconds Since
Previous Packet
Selecting this tells Ethereal to display time stamps in seconds since previous
packet format, see Section 6.9, Time display formats and time references.
This item allows you to trigger a name resolve of the current packet only, see
Section 7.4, Name Resolution.
This item allows you to control whether or not Ethereal translates MAC addresses into names, see Section 7.4, Name Resolution.
This item allows you to control whether or not Ethereal translates network
addresses into names, see Section 7.4, Name Resolution.
This item allows you to control whether or not Ethereal translates transport
addresses into names, see Section 7.4, Name Resolution.
Colorize Packet
List
This item allows you to control wether or not Ethereal should colorize the
packet list.
Note!
40
User Interface
Menu Item
Accelerator
Description
Enabling colorization will slow down the display of new packets while capturing / loading capture files.
Auto Scroll in
Live Capture
This item allows you to specify that Ethereal should scroll the packet list
pane as new packets come in, so you are always looking at the last packet. If
you do not specify this, Ethereal simply adds new packets onto the end of the
list, but does not scroll the packet list pane.
-----Zoom In
Ctrl++
Zoom into the packet data (increase the font size).
Zoom Out
Normal Size
Ctrl+=
Set zoom level back to 100% (set font size back to normal).
Resize
Columns
All
Resize all column widths so the content will fit into it.
Note!
Resizing may take a significant amount of time, especially if a
large capture file is loaded.
-----Expand
trees
SubThis menu item expands the currently selected subtree in the packet details
tree.
Expand All
Ethereal keeps a list of all the protocol subtrees that are expanded, and uses it
to ensure that the correct subtrees are expanded when you display a packet.
This menu item expands all subtrees in all packets in the capture.
Collapse All
This menu item collapses the tree view of all packets in the capture list.
-----Coloring
Rules...
This menu item brings up a dialog box that allows you to color packets in the
packet list pane according to filter expressions you choose. It can be very
useful for spotting certain types of packets, see Section 9.3, Packet colorization.
-----Show Packet in
New Window
Reload
This menu item brings up the selected packet in a separate window. The separate window shows only the tree view and byte view panes.
Ctrl-R
This menu item allows you to reload the current capture file.
41
User Interface
Accelerator
Back
Alt+Left
Description
Jump to the recently visited packet in the packet history, much like the page
history in a web browser.
Forward
Alt+Right
Jump to the next visited packet in the packet history, much like the page history in a web browser.
Go to Packet... Ctrl-G
Bring up a dialog box that allows you to specify a packet number, and then
goes to that packet. See Section 6.7, Go to a specific packet for details.
Go to Corresponding Packet
User Interface
Menu Item
Accelerator
Description
-----First Packet
Jump to the first packet of the capture file.
Last Packet
Jump to the last packet of the capture file.
43
User Interface
Accelerator
Description
Interfaces...
This menu item brings up a dialog box that shows what's going on at the network interfaces Ethereal knows of, see Section 4.4, The "Capture Interfaces"
dialog box) .
Options...
Ctrl+K
This menu item brings up the Capture Options dialog box (discussed further
in Section 4.5, The "Capture Options" dialog box) and allows you to start
capturing packets.
Start
Immediately start capturing packets with the same settings than the last time.
Stop
Ctrl+E
This menu item stops the currently running capture, see Section 4.9.1, Stop
44
User Interface
Menu Item
Accelerator
Description
the running capture) .
Restart
This menu item stops the currently running capture and starts again with the
same options, this is just for convenience.
Capture
ters...
FilThis menu item brings up a dialog box that allows you to create and edit capture filters. You can name filters, and you can save them for future use. More
detail on this subject is provided in Section 6.5, Defining and saving filters
45
User Interface
Accelerator
Description
Fil-
Apply as Filter
> ...
This menu item brings up a dialog box that allows you to create and edit display filters. You can name filters, and you can save them for future use. More
detail on this subject is provided in Section 6.5, Defining and saving filters
These menu items will change the current display filter and apply the
changed filter immediately. Depending on the chosen menu item, the current
display filter string will be replaced or appended to by the selected protocol
field in the packet details pane.
These menu items will change the current display filter but won't apply the
changed filter. Depending on the chosen menu item, the current display filter
46
User Interface
Menu Item
Accelerator
Description
string will be replaced or appended to by the selected protocol field in the
packet details pane.
This menu item allows the user to enable/disable protocol dissectors, see Section 9.4.1, The "Enabled Protocols" dialog box
Decode As...
This menu item allows the user to force Ethereal to decode certain packets as
a particular protocol, see Section 9.4.2, User Specified Decodes
User Specified
Decodes...
This menu item allows the user to force Ethereal to decode certain packets as
a particular protocol, see Section 9.4.3, Show User Specified Decodes
-----Follow
Stream
TCP
This menu item brings up a separate window and displays all the TCP segments captured that are on the same TCP connection as a selected packet, see
Section 7.2, Following TCP streams
47
User Interface
All menu items will bring up a new window showing specific statistical information.
Accelerator
Description
Summary
Show information about the data captured, see Section 8.2, The "Summary"
window.
Protocol Hierarchy
Display a hierarchical tree of protocol statistics, see Section 8.3, The "Protocol Hierarchy" window.
Conversations
Display a list of conversations (traffic between two endpoints), see Section 8.5.2, The "Conversations" window.
48
User Interface
Menu Item
Accelerator
Description
Endpoints
Display a list of endpoints (traffic to/from an address), see Section 8.4.2,
The "Endpoints" window.
IO Graphs
Display user specified graphs (e.g. the number of packets in the course of
time), see Section 8.6, The "IO Graphs" window.
-----Conversation
List
Display a list of conversations, obsoleted by the combined window of Conversations above, see Section 8.5.3, The protocol specific "Conversation
List" windows.
Endpoint List
Display a list of endpoints, obsoleted by the combined window of Endpoints
above, see Section 8.4.3, The protocol specific "Endpoint List" windows.
Service
Response Time
Display the time between a request and the corresponding response, see Section 8.7, Service Response Time.
-----ANSI
See Section 8.8, The protocol specific statistics windows
GSM
See Section 8.8, The protocol specific statistics windows
H.225...
See Section 8.8, The protocol specific statistics windows
ISUP Message
Types
MTP3
See Section 8.8, The protocol specific statistics windows
RTP
See Section 8.8, The protocol specific statistics windows
SCTP
See Section 8.8, The protocol specific statistics windows
SIP
See Section 8.8, The protocol specific statistics windows
VoIP Calls...
See Section 8.8, The protocol specific statistics windows
WAP-WSP...
See Section 8.8, The protocol specific statistics windows
-----BOOTP-DHCP
See Section 8.8, The protocol specific statistics windows
HTTP
HTTP request/response statistics, see Section 8.8, The protocol specific statistics windows
ISUP Messages
See Section 8.8, The protocol specific statistics windows
ONC-RPC Programs
TCP
Stream
Graph
User Interface
Accelerator
Contents
F1
Description
This menu item brings up a basic help system.
Supported Protocols
Manual Pages
> ...
Ethereal
line > ...
This menu item brings up a dialog box showing the supported protocols and
protocol fields.
This menu item starts a Web browser showing one of the locally installed
html manual pages.
OnThis menu item starts a Web browser showing the chosen webpage from: http://www.ethereal.com.
-----50
User Interface
Menu Item
Accelerator
Description
About Ethereal
This menu item brings up an information window that provides some information on Ethereal, such as the plugins, the used folders, ...
Note!
Calling a Web browser might be unsupported in your version of Ethereal. If this is the
case, the corresponding menu items will be hidden.
Note!
If calling a Web browser fails on your machine, maybe because just nothing happens or the
browser is started but no page is shown, have a look at the webbrowser setting in the preferences dialog.
51
User Interface
Options...
Corresponding
Menu Item
Capture/Interfaces...
Description
Capture/Options...
This item brings up the Capture Options dialog box (discussed
further in Section 4.3, Start Capturing) and allows you to start
capturing packets.
Start
Capture/Start
This item starts capturing packets with the options form the last
time.
Stop
Capture/Stop
This item stops the currently running live capture process Section 4.3, Start Capturing).
Restart
Capture/Restart
This item stops the currently running live capture process and restarts it again, for convenience.
-----Open...
File/Open...
This item brings up the file open dialog box that allows you to
load a capture file for viewing. It is discussed in more detail in
Section 5.2.1, The "Open Capture File" dialog box.
Save As...
File/Save As...
This item allows you to save the current capture file to whatever
file you would like. It pops up the Save Capture File As dialog
box (which is discussed further in Section 5.3.1, The "Save Capture File As" dialog box).
Note!
If you currently have a temporary capture file, the
Save icon
will be shown instead.
52
User Interface
Corresponding
Menu Item
Close
Description
File/Close
This item closes the current capture. If you have not saved the
capture, you will be asked to save it first.
Reload
View/Reload
This item allows you to reload the current capture file.
Print...
File/Print...
This item allows you to print all (or some of) the packets in the
capture file. It pops up the Ethereal Print dialog box (which is
discussed further in Section 5.7, Printing packets).
-----Find Packet...
Edit/Find Packet...
This item brings up a dialog box that allows you to find a packet.
There is further information on finding packets in Section 6.6,
Finding packets.
Go Back
Go/Go Back
This item jumps back in the packet history.
Go Forward
Go/Go Forward
This item jumps forward in the packet history.
Go to Packet...
Go/Go to Packet...
This item brings up a dialog box that allows you to specify a
packet number to go to that packet.
Go
To
Packet
-----Colorize
View/Colorize
Colorize the packet list (or not).
Auto Scroll
Live Capture
in View/Auto Scroll
Auto scroll packet list while doing a live capture (or not).
in Live Capture
-----Zoom In
View/Zoom In
Zoom into the packet data (increase the font size).
Zoom Out
View/Zoom Out
Zoom out of the packet data (decrease the font size).
Normal Size
View/Normal Size
Set zoom level back to 100%.
Resize Columns
View/Resize
Columns
This item brings up a dialog box that allows you to create and
edit capture filters. You can name filters, and you can save them
for future use. More detail on this subject is provided in Section 6.5, Defining and saving filters.
53
User Interface
Corresponding
Menu Item
Analyze/Display
Filters...
Preferences...
Description
This item brings up a dialog box that allows you to create and
edit display filters. You can name filters, and you can save them
for future use. More detail on this subject is provided in Section 6.5, Defining and saving filters.
This item brings up a dialog box that allows you color packets in
the packet list pane according to filter expressions you choose. It
can be very useful for spotting certain types of packets. More detail on this subject is provided in Section 9.3, Packet colorization.
Edit/Preferences
This item brings up a dialog box that allows you to set preferences for many parameters that control Ethereal. You can also
save your preferences so Ethereal will use them the next time you
start it. More detail is provided in Section 9.5, Preferences
-----Help
Help/Contents
This item brings up help dialog box.
54
User Interface
The leftmost button labeled "Filter:" can be clicked to bring up the filter construction dialog, described in Figure 6.8, The "Capture Filters" and "Display Filters" dialog boxes.
The left middle text box provides an area to enter or edit display filter strings, see Section 6.3,
Building display filter expressions . A syntax check of your filter string is done while you are typing. The background will turn red if you enter an incomplete or invalid string, and will become green
when you enter a valid string. You can click on the pull down arrow to select a previously-entered
filter string from a list. The entries in the pull down list will remain available even after a program
restart.
Note!
After you've changed something in this field, don't forget to press the Apply button (or
the Enter/Return key), to apply this filter string to the display.
Note!
This field is also where the current filter in effect is displayed.
The middle button labeled "Add Expression..." opens a dialog box that lets you edit a display filter
from a list of protocol fields, described in Section 6.4, The "Filter Expression" dialog box
The right middle button labeled "Clear" resets the current display filter and clears the edit area.
The rightmost button labeled "Apply" applies the current value in the edit area as the new display filter.
Note!
Applying a display filter on large capture files might take quite a long time!
55
User Interface
Each line in the packet list corresponds to one packet in the capture file. If you select a line in this pane,
more details will be displayed in the "Packet Details" and "Packet Bytes" panes.
While dissecting a packet, Ethereal will place information from the protocol dissectors into the columns.
As higher level protocols might overwrite information from lower levels, you will typically see the information from the highest possible level only.
For example, let's look at a packet containing TCP inside IP inside an Ethernet packet. The Ethernet dissector will write its data (such as the Ethernet addresses), the IP dissector will overwrite this by its own
(such as the IP addresses), the TCP dissector will overwrite the IP information, and so on.
There are a lot of different columns available. Which columns are displayed can be selected by preference settings, see Section 9.5, Preferences.
The default columns will show:
No. The number of the packet in the capture file. This number won't change, even if a display filter
is used.
Time The timestamp of the packet. The presentation format of this timestamp can be changed, see
Section 6.9, Time display formats and time references.
There is a context menu (right mouse click) available, see details in Figure 6.3, Pop-up menu of "Packet List" pane.
56
User Interface
This pane shows the protocols and protocol fields of the packet selected in the "Packet List" pane. The
protocols and fields of the packet are displayed using a tree, which can be expanded and collapsed.
There is a context menu (right mouse click) available, see details in Figure 6.4, Pop-up menu of "Packet Details" pane.
Some protocol fields are specially displayed.
Generated fields Ethereal itself will generate additional protocol fields which are surrounded by
brackets. The information in these fields is derived from the known context to other packets in the
capture file. For example, Ethereal is doing a sequence/acknowledge analysis of each TCP stream,
which is displayed in the [SEQ/ACK analysis] fields of the TCP protocol.
Links If Ethereal detected a relationship to another packet in the capture file, it will generate a link
to that packet. Links are underlined and displayed in blue. If double-clicked, Ethereal jumps to the
corresponding packet.
57
User Interface
As usual for a hexdump, the left side shows the offset in the packet data, in the middle the packet data is
shown in a hexadecimal representation and on the right the corresponding ASCII characters (or . if not
appropriate) are displayed.
There is a context menu (right mouse click) available, see details in Figure 6.5, Pop-up menu of "Packet Bytes" pane.
Depending on the packet data, sometimes more than one page is available, e.g. when Ethereal has reassembled some packets into a single chunk of data, see Section 7.3, Packet Reassembling. In this case
there are some additional tabs shown at the bottom of the pane to let you select the page you want to see.
Note!
The additional pages might contain data picked from multiple packets.
The context menu (right mouse click) of the tab labels will show a list of all available pages. This can be
helpful if the size in the pane is too small for all the tab labels.
58
User Interface
This statusbar is shown while no capture file is loaded, e.g. when Ethereal is started.
The left side shows information about the capture file, its name, its size and the elapsed time while it
was being captured.
The right side shows the current number of packets in the capture file. The following values are displayed:
This is displayed if you have selected a protocol field from the "Packet Details" pane.
Tip!
The value between the brackets (in this example arp.opcode) can be used as a display filter string, representing the selected protocol field.
59
User Interface
60
Capture from different kinds of network hardware (Ethernet, Token Ring, ATM, ...).
Stop the capture on different triggers like: amount of captured data, captured time, captured number
of packets.
Filter packets, reducing the amount of data to be captured, see Section 4.8, Filtering while capturing.
Capturing into multiple files while doing a long term capture, and in addition the option to form a
ringbuffer of these files, keeping only the last x files, useful for a "very long term" capture, see Section 4.6, Capture files and file modes.
Simultaneous capturing from multiple network interfaces (however, you can start multiple instances
of Ethereal and merge capture files later).
Stop capturing (or doing some other action), depending on the captured data.
61
4.2. Prerequisites
Setting up Ethereal to capture packets for the first time can be tricky.
Tip!
A comprehensive guide "How To
tp://wiki.ethereal.com/CaptureSetup.
setup
Capture"
is
available
at:
ht-
You need to choose the right network interface to capture packet data from.
You need to capture at the right place in the network to see the traffic you want to see.
If you have any problems setting up your capture environment, you should have a look at the guide mentioned above.
62
You can get an overview of the available local interfaces using the "
box, see Figure 4.1, The "Capture Interfaces" dialog box. You can start a capture from this dialog
box, using (one of) the "Capture" button(s).
If you have selected the right capture options before, you can immediately start a capture using the "
Capture Start" menu / toolbar item. The capture process will start immediately.
If you already know the name of the capture interface, you can start Ethereal from the command line
and use the following:
ethereal -i eth0 -k
This will start Ethereal capturing on interface eth0, more details can be found at: Section 9.2, Start
Ethereal from the command line.
63
Warning!
As the "Capture Interfaces" dialog is showing live captured data, it is consuming a lot of
system ressources. Close this dialog as soon as possible to prevent excessive system load.
Note!
This dialog box will only show the local interfaces Ethereal knows of. As Ethereal might
not be able to detect all local interfaces, and it cannot detect the remote interfaces available, there could be more capture interfaces available than listed.
Description
IP
The first IP address Ethereal could resolve from this interface. If no address could be
resolved (e.g. no DHCP server available), "unknown" will be displayed. If more than
one IP address could be resolved, only the first is shown (unpredictable which one in
that case).
Packets
The number of packets captured from this interface, since this dialog was opened.
Will be greyed out, if no packet was captured in the last second.
Packets/s
Number of packets captured in the last second. Will be greyed out, if no packet was
captured in the last second.
Stop
Capture
Start a capture on this interface immediately, using the settings from the last capture.
Prepare
Open the Capture Options dialog with this interface selected, see Section 4.5, The
"Capture Options" dialog box.
Close
64
65
Tip!
If you are unsure which options to choose in this dialog box, just try keeping the defaults
as this should work well in many cases.
You can set the following fields in this dialog box:
66
This field specifies the interface you want to capture on. You can
only capture on one interface, and you can only capture on interfaces that Ethereal has found on the system. It is a drop-down list,
so simply click on the button on the right hand side and select the
interface you want. It defaults to the first non-loopback interface
that supports capturing, and if there are none, the first loopback
interface. On some systems, loopback interfaces cannot be used
for capturing (loopback interfaces are not available on Windows
platforms).
This field performs the same function as the -i <interface> command line option.
IP address
Unless you are in the rare situation that you need this, just keep
the default. For a detailed description, see Section 4.7,
Link-layer header type
Enter the buffer size to be used while capturing. This is the size of
the kernel buffer which will keep the captured packets, until they
are written to disk. If you encounter packet drops, try increasing
this value.
Note
This option is only available on Windows platforms.
Capture packets in promiscuous
mode
This checkbox allows you to specify that Ethereal should put the
interface in promiscuous mode when capturing. If you do not specify this, Ethereal will only capture the packets going to or from
your computer (not all packets on your LAN segment).
Note
If some other process has put the interface in
promiscuous mode you may be capturing in promiscuous mode even if you turn off this option
Note
Even in promiscuous mode you still won't necessarily see all packets on your LAN segment, see http://
www.ethereal.com/ faq#promiscsniff for some more
explanations.
Limit each packet to n bytes
This field allows you to specify the maximum amount of data that
will be captured for each packet, and is sometimes referred to as
the snaplen. If disabled, the default is 65535, which will be sufficient for most protocols. Some rules of thumb:
67
Capture Filter
If you don't capture all of the data in a packet, you might find
that the packet data you want is in the part that's dropped, or
that reassembly isn't possible as the data required for reassembly is missing.
This field allows you to specify a capture filter. Capture filters are
discussed in more details in Section 4.8, Filtering while capturing. It defaults to empty, or no filter.
You can also click on the button labelled Capture Filter, and Ethereal will bring up the Capture Filters dialog box and allow you to
create and/or select a filter. Please see Section 6.5, Defining and
saving filters
This field allows you to specify the file name that will be used for
the capture file. This field is left blank by default. If the field is
left blank, the capture data will be stored in a temporary file, see
Section 4.6, Capture files and file modes for details.
You can also click on the button to the right of this field to
browse through the filesystem.
Multiple files only: Switch to the next file after the given number
of byte(s)/kilobyte(s)/megabyte(s)/gigabyte(s) have been captured.
Multiple files only: Switch to the next file after the given number
of second(s)/minutes(s)/hours(s)/days(s) have elapsed.
Multiple files only: Form a ring buffer of the capture files, with
the given number of files.
Multiple files only: Stop capturing after switching to the next file
the given number of times.
Stop capturing after the given number of packets have been captured.
Stop
capturing
after
the
given
number
of
byte(s)/kilobyte(s)/megabyte(s)/gigabyte(s) have been captured.
This option is greyed out, if "Use multiple files" is selected.
Stop
capturing
after
the
given
number
second(s)/minutes(s)/hours(s)/days(s) have elapsed.
of
This option allows you to specify that Ethereal should update the packet list pane in real
time. If you do not specify this, Ethereal does not display any packets until you stop the
capture. When you check this, Ethereal captures in a separate process and feeds the captures to the display process.
Automatic
scrolling in
live capture
This option allows you to specify that Ethereal should scroll the packet list pane as new
packets come in, so you are always looking at the last packet. If you do not specify this,
Ethereal simply adds new packets onto the end of the list, but does not scroll the packet
list pane. This option is greyed out if "Update list of packets in real time" is disabled.
If this option is checked, the following capture info dialog will be hidden.
This option allows you to control whether or not Ethereal translates MAC addresses into names, see Section 7.4, Name Resolution.
This option allows you to control whether or not Ethereal translates network addresses into names, see Section 7.4, Name Resolution.
This option allows you to control whether or not Ethereal translates transport addresses into protocols, see Section 7.4, Name
Resolution.
4.5.6. Buttons
Once you have set the values you desire and have selected the options you need, simply click on OK to
commence the capture, or Cancel to cancel the capture.
If you start a capture, Ethereal allows you to stop capturing when you have enough packets captured, for
details see Section 4.9, While a Capture is running ....
69
Tip!
Working with large files (several 100 MB's) can be quite slow. If you plan to do a long
term capture or capturing from a high traffic network, think about using one of the "Multiple files" options. This will spread the captured packets over several smaller files which
can be much more pleasant to work with.
Note!
Using Multiple files may cut context related information. Ethereal keeps context information of the loaded packet data, so it can report context related problems (like a stream error) and keeps information about context related protocols (e.g. where data is exchanged at
the establishing phase and only referred to in later packets). As it keeps this information
only for the loaded file, using one of the multiple file modes may cut these contexts. If the
establishing phase is saved in one file and the things you would like to see is in another,
you might not see some of the valuable context related information.
Tip!
Information about the folders used for the capture file(s), can be found in Appendix A,
Configuration (and other) Files and Folders.
"Use
multiple "Ring
buffer Mode
files" option
with n files" option
foo.cap
foo.cap
Multiple
files, foo_00001_20040205110102.cap,
continuous
foo_00002_20040205110102.cap, ...
foo.cap
Multiple
files, foo_00001_20040205110102.cap,
ring buffer
foo_00002_20040205110102.cap, ...
A single capture file will be used. If you want to place the new
capture file to a specific folder, choose this mode.
70
Like the "Single named file" mode, but a new file is created and
used, after reaching one of the multiple file switch conditions (one
of the "Next file every ..." values).
Much like "Multiple files continuous", reaching one of the multiple files switch conditions (one of the "Next file every ..." values) will switch to the next file. This will be a newly created file
if value of "Ring buffer with n files" is not reached, otherwise it
will replace the oldest of the formerly used files (thus forming a
"ring").
This mode will limit the maximum disk usage, even for an unlimited amount of capture input data, keeping the latest captured
data.
71
72
Tip!
You will find a lot of Capture Filter examples at http://wiki.ethereal.com/CaptureFilters.
You enter the capture filter into the Filter field of the Ethereal Capture Options dialog box, as shown in
Figure 4.2, The "Capture Options" dialog box. The following is an outline of the syntax of the tcpdump capture filter language. See the expression option at the tcpdump manual page for details: http://
www.tcpdump.org/tcpdump_man.html.
A capture filter takes the form of a series of primitive expressions connected by conjunctions (and/or)
and optionally preceded by not:
[not] primitive [and|or [not] primitive ...]
An example is shown in Example 4.1, A capture filter for telnet than captures traffic to and from a particular host .
Example 4.1. A capture filter for telnet than captures traffic to and from a
particular host
tcp port 23 and host 10.0.0.5
This example captures telnet traffic to and from the host 10.0.0.5, and shows how to use two primitives
and the and conjunction. Another example is shown in Example 4.2, Capturing all telnet traffic not
from 10.0.0.5, and shows how to capture all telnet traffic except that from 10.0.0.5.
This primitive allows you to filter on TCP and UDP port numbers. You can optionally precede this primitive with the keywords
src|dst and tcp|udp which allow you to specify that you are only
interested in source or destination ports and TCP or UDP packets
respectively. The keywords tcp|udp must appear before src|dst.
If these are not specified, packets will be selected for both the
TCP and UDP protocols and when the specified address appears
in either the source or destination port field.
less|greater <length>
ether|ip broadcast|multicast
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This dialog box will inform you about the number of captured packets and the time since the capture
was started. The selection which protocols are counted cannot be changed.
Tip!
This Capture Info dialog box can be hidden, using the "Hide capture info dialog" option in
the Capture Options dialog box.
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1.
Note!
The Capture Info dialog box might be hidden, if the option "Hide capture info dialog"
is used.
2.
Stop".
3.
4.
5.
The capture will be automatically stopped, if one of the Stop Conditions is exceeded, e.g. the maximum amount of data was captured.
Stop".
2.
Restart".
Restart".
76
77
Print packets
78
Note!
You can also use drag-and-drop to open a file, by simply dropping the desired file from
your file manager onto Ethereal's main window. However, drag-and-drop is not available/
won't work in all desktop environments.
If you didn't save the current capture file before, you will be asked to do so, to prevent data loss (this behaviour can be disabled in the preferences).
In addition to its native file format (libpcap format, also used by tcpdump/WinDump and other libpcap/
WinPcap-based programs), Ethereal can read capture files from a large number of other packet capture
programs as well. See Section 5.2.2, Input File Formats for the list of capture formats Ethereal understands.
Note
Ethereal uses the open dialog box from the version of the GTK+ toolkit that it's using. This
dialog was completely redesigned in GTK version 2.4. Depending on the installed GTK
version, your dialog box might look different. However, as the functionality remains almost the same, much of this description will work with your version of Ethereal.
79
With this dialog box, you can perform the following actions:
1.
The "+ Add" button allows you to add a directory, selected in the right-hand pane, to the favorites
(bookmarks?) list. Those changes are persistent.
2.
The "- Remove" button allows you to remove a selected directory from that list again (the items
like: "Home", "Desktop", and "Filesystem" cannot be removed).
3.
4.
View file preview information (like the filesize, the number of packets, ...), while browsing the
filesystem.
5.
Specify a display filter with the Filter button and filter field. This filter will be used when opening
the new file. Clicking on the Filter button causes Ethereal to pop up the Filters dialog box (which is
discussed further in Section 6.2, Filtering packets while viewing).
6.
Specify which name resolution is to be performed for all packets by clicking on one of the "Enable
name resolution" check buttons. Details about name resolution can be found in Section 7.4, Name
Resolution.
7.
Click the Open button to accept your selected file and open it. If Ethereal doesn't recognize the capture format, it will grey out this button.
8.
Click the Cancel button to go back to Ethereal and not load a capture file.
You can also change the display filter and name resolution settings later while viewing the packets.
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However, for very large capture files it can take a significant amount of extra time changing these settings later, so it might be a good idea to set at least the filter in advance here.
libpcap, tcpdump and various other tools using tcpdump's capture format
HP-UX's nettl
81
Note!
It may not be possible to read some formats dependent on the packet types captured. Ethernet captures are usually supported for most file formats, but other packet types (e.g. token
ring packets) may not be possible to read from all file formats.
82
Note
Ethereal uses the open dialog box from the version of the GTK+ toolkit that it's using. This
dialog was completely redesigned in the GTK version 2.4. Depending on the installed
GTK version, your dialog box might look different. However, as the functionality remains
almost the same, much of this description will work with your version of Ethereal.
83
With this dialog box, you can perform the following actions:
1.
Type in the name of the file you wish to save the captured packets in, as a standard file name in
your file system.
2.
3.
Select the range of the packets to be saved, see Section 5.8, The Packet Range frame
4.
Specify the format of the saved capture file by clicking on the File type drop down box. You can
choose from the types, described in Section 5.3.2, Output File Formats.
Note!
Some capture formats may not be available, depending on the packet types captured.
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Tip!
You can convert capture files from one format to another by reading in a capture file
and writing it out using a different format.
5.
Use "Browse for other folders" to browse files and folders in your file system.
6.
Click on the Save button to accept your selected file and save to it. If Ethereal has a problem saving
the captured packets to the file you specified, it will display an error dialog box. After clicking OK
on this error dialog box, you can try again.
7.
Click on the Cancel button to go back to Ethereal and not save the captured packets.
libpcap (tcpdump)
Novell LANalyzer
Sun snoop
Accellent 5Views
HP-UX's nettl
Other protocol analyzers may require that the file has a certain suffix in order to read the
files you generate with Ethereal, e.g.:
".DMP" for Tcpdump/libpcap
".CAP" for Network Associates Sniffer Windows
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Use the menu item "Merge" from the "File" menu, to open the merge dialog, see Figure 5.3, The
"Merge with Capture File" dialog box. This menu item will be disabled, until you have loaded a
capture file.
Use drag-and-drop to drop multiple files on the main window. Ethereal will try to merge the packets in chronological order from the dropped files into a newly created temporary file. If you drop
only a single file, it will simply replace a (maybe) existing one.
Use the mergecap tool, which is a command line tool to merge capture files. This tool provides the
most options to merge capture files, see Section C.6, mergecap: Merging multiple capture files into
one .
Note!
If your current data wasn't saved before, you will be asked to save it first, before this dialog
box is shown.
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Prepend the packets from the selected file before the currently
loaded packets.
Merge both the packets from the selected and currently loaded file
in chronological order.
Append the packets from the selected file after the currently
loaded packets.
All other controls will work the same way as in the "Open Capture File" dialog box, see Section 5.2.1,
The "Open Capture File" dialog box.
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The List Files dialog box will list the files Ethereal has recognized as being part of the current file
set.
The last line will contain info about the currently used directory where all of the files in the file set can
be found.
The content of this dialog box is updated each time a capture file is opened/closed.
If you click on the radio button to the left of the line, the corresponding capture file will be opened. The
Close button will, well, close the dialog box.
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Note!
There are more specialized functions to export specific data, which will be described at the
appropriate places.
XXX - add detailed descriptions of the output formats and some sample output, too.
Export to file: frame chooses the file to export the packet data to.
The Packet Range frame is described in Section 5.8, The Packet Range frame.
The Packet Details frame is described in Section 5.9, The Packet Format frame.
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Tip!
You can easily convert PostScript files to PDF files using ghostscript. For example: export
to a file named foo.ps and then call: ps2pdf foo.ps
Export to file: frame chooses the file to export the packet data to.
The Packet Range frame is described in Section 5.8, The Packet Range frame.
The Packet Details frame is described in Section 5.9, The Packet Format frame.
Export packet summary into CSV, used e.g. by spreadsheet programs to im-/export data.
Export to file: frame chooses the file to export the packet data to.
The Packet Range frame is described in Section 5.8, The Packet Range frame.
Export to file: frame chooses the file to export the packet data to.
The Packet Range frame is described in Section 5.8, The Packet Range frame.
There's no such thing as a packet details frame for PSML export, as the packet format is defined by the
PSML specification.
Export to file: frame chooses the file to export the packet data to.
The Packet Range frame is described in Section 5.8, The Packet Range frame.
There's no such thing as a packet details frame for PDML export, as the packet format is defined by the
PDML specification.
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The Save in folder: field lets you select the folder to save to (from some predefined folders).
93
Plain Text specifies that the packet print should be in plain text.
PostScript specifies that the packet print process should use PostScript to generate a better print output on PostScript aware printers.
Output to file: specifies that printing be done to a file, which name is entered
94
Note!
These Print command fields are not available on windows platforms.
This field specifies the command to use for printing. It is typically lpr. You
would change it to specify a particular queue if you need to print to a queue
other than the default. An example might be:
lpr -Pmypostscript
This field is greyed out if Output to file: is checked above.
Packet Range
Select the packets to be printed, see Section 5.8, The Packet Range frame
Packet Format
Select the output format of the packets to be printed. You can choose, how each
packet is printed, see Figure 5.11, The "Packet Format" frame
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If the Captured button is set (default), all packets from the selected rule will be processed. If the Displayed button is set, only the currently displayed packets are taken into account to the selected rule.
From first to last marked packet process the packets from the first to the last marked one.
Specify a packet range process a user specified range of packets, e.g. specifying 5,10-15,20- will
process the packet number five, the packets from packet number ten to fifteen (inclusive) and every
packet from number twenty to the end of the capture.
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Packet summary line enable the output of the summary line, just as in the "Packet List" pane.
All collapsed the info from the "Packet Details" pane in "all collapsed" state.
As displayed the info from the "Packet Details" pane in the current state.
All expanded the info from the "Packet Details" pane in "all expanded" state.
Packet bytes enable the output of the packet bytes, just as in the "Packet Bytes" pane.
Each packet on a new page put each packet on a separate page (e.g. when saving/printing to a text
file, this will put a form feed character between the packets).
97
98
You can also select and view packets the same way, while Ethereal is capturing, if you selected "Update
list of packets in real time" in the Ethereal Capture Preferences dialog box.
99
In addition, you can view individual packets in a separate window as shown in Figure 6.2, Viewing a
packet in a separate window. Do this by selecting the packet you are interested in the packet list pane,
and then select "Show Packet in New Windows" from the Display menu. This allows you to easily compare two or even more packets.
Finally, you can bring up a pop-up menu over either the "Packet List", "Packet Details" or "Packet
Bytes" pane by clicking your right mouse button.
The following table gives an overview which functions are available in the panes, where to find the corresponding function in the menu, and a short description of each item.
Mark
(toggle)
Description
Edit
Mark a packet.
Time Reference
Edit
Set/reset and find time references.
Expand Subtrees -
View
Expand the currently selected subtree.
Expand All
View
Expand all subtrees in all packets in the capture.
Collapse All
View
Ethereal keeps a list of all the protocol subtrees that are expanded, and uses it to ensure that the correct subtrees are expanded when you display a packet. This menu item collapses the tree view of all packets in the capture list.
Apply as Filter
Analyze
Prepare a Filter
Analyze
.
.
Follow
stream
Wiki
Page
TCP X
Analyze
View all the data on a TCP stream between a pair of nodes.
Protocol -
Item
Decode As...
Description
The menu item takes you to the preferences dialog and selects the page corresponding to the protocol if there are settings associated with the highlighted field. More information
on preferences can be found in Section 9.5, Preferences.
Analyze
.
Print...
File
Print (the selected) packet(s).
Show Packet in X
New Window
Resolve name
Go
Copy
View
Display the selected packet in another window.
File->Export
Export raw packet bytes to a binary file.
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This menu item is the same as the Edit menu item of the same
name. It allows you to mark a packet.
Time Reference
This menu item is the same as the Edit menu items of the same
name. It allows you to set and work with time references.
Apply as Filter
This menu item is the same as the Analyze menu items of the
same name.
Prepare a Filter
This menu item is the same as the Analyze menu items of the
same name.
This menu item is the same as the Analyze menu item of the same
name. It allows you to view all the data on a TCP stream between
a pair of nodes.
Decode As...
This menu item is the same as the Analyze menu item of the same
name.
Print...
This menu item is the same as the File menu item of the same
name. It allows you to print packets.
This menu item is the same as the View menu item of the same
name. It allows you to display the selected packet in another window.
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Expand Subtrees
Expand All
This menu item expands all subtrees in all packets in the capture.
Collapse All
Ethereal keeps a list of all the protocol subtrees that are expanded,
and uses it to ensure that the correct subtrees are expanded when
you display a packet. This menu item collapses the tree view of
all packets in the capture list.
Apply as Filter
This menu item is the same as the Analyze menu items of the
same name.
Prepare a Filter
This menu item is the same as the Analyze menu items of the
same name.
This menu item is the same as the Analyze menu item of the same
name. It allows you to view all the data on a TCP stream between
a pair of nodes.
Show the wiki page corresponding to the currently selected protocol in your web browser.
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Show the filter field reference web page corresponding to the currently selected protocol in your web browser.
Protocol Properties...
The menu item takes you to the properties dialog and selects the
page corresponding to the protocol if there are properties associated with the highlighted field. More information on preferences
can be found in Figure 9.8, The preferences dialog box.
Decode As...
This menu item is the same as the Analyze menu item of the same
name.
Resolve Name
Go to Corresponding Packet
If the selected field has a corresponding packet, go to it. Corresponding packets will usually be a request/response packet pair or
such.
Copy
This menu item is the same as the File menu item of the same
name. It allows you to export raw packet bytes to a binary file.
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Protocol
To select packets based on protocol type, simply type the protocol you are interested in in the Filter:
field in the filter toolbar of the Ethereal window and press enter to initiate the filter. Figure 6.6,
Filtering on the TCP protocol shows an example of what happens when you type tcp in the filter field.
Note!
All protocol and field names are entered in lowercase. Also, don't forget to press enter after
entering the filter expression.
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As you might have noticed, only packets of the TCP protocol are displayed now (e.g. packets 1-10 are
hidden). The packet numbering will remain as before, so the first packet shown is now packet number
11.
Note!
When using a display filter, all packets remain in the capture file. The display filter only
changes the display of the capture file but not its content!
You can filter on any protocol that Ethereal understands. You can also filter on any field that a dissector
adds to the tree view, but only if the dissector has added an abbreviation for the field. A list of such
fields is available in the Ethereal in the Add Expression... dialog box. You can find more information
on the Add Expression... dialog box in Section 6.4, The "Filter Expression" dialog box.
For example, to narrow the packet list pane down to only those packets to or from the IP address
192.168.0.1, use ip.addr==192.168.0.1.
Note!
To remove the filter, click on the Clear button to the right of the filter field.
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Tip!
You will find a lot of Display Filter examples at the Ethereal Wiki Display Filter page at
http://wiki.ethereal.com/DisplayFilters.
Tip!
You can use English and C-like terms in the same way, they can even be mixed in a filter
string!
C-like
==
Equal
eq
ip.addr==10.0.0.5
ne
!=
Not equal
ip.addr!=10.0.0.5
gt
>
Greater than
frame.pkt_len > 10
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English
C-like
<
Less than
lt
le
<=
In addition, all protocol fields are typed. Table 6.3, Display Filter Field Types provides a list of the
types and example of how to express them.
Example
eth.addr == ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
IPv4 address
ip.addr == 192.168.0.1
IPv6 address
IPX network number
String (text)
Double-precision floating point number
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C-like
and
&&
or
||
Logical OR
ip.addr==10.0.0.5 or ip.addr==192.1.1.1
xor
^^
Logical XOR
tr.dst[0:3] == 0.6.29 xor tr.src[0:3] == 0.6.29
not
!
Logical NOT
not llc
[...]
Substring Operator
Ethereal allows you to select subsequences of a sequence in rather elaborate ways. After a
label you can place a pair of brackets [] containing a comma separated list of range specifiers.
eth.src[0:3] == 00:00:83
The example above uses the n:m format to specify a single range. In this case n is the beginning offset and m is the length of the range being specified.
eth.src[1-2] == 00:83
The example above uses the n-m format to specify a single range. In this case n is the beginning offset and m is the ending offset.
eth.src[:4] == 00:00:83:00
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English
C-like
111
Tip!
The "Filter Expression" dialog box is an excellent way to learn how to write Ethereal display filter strings.
When you first bring up the Filter Expression dialog box you are shown a tree list of field names, organized by protocol, and a box for selecting a relation.
Field Name
Select a protocol field from the protocol field tree. Every protocol with filterable fields
is listed at the top level. By clicking on the "+" next to a protocol name you can get a
list of the field names available for filtering for that protocol.
Relation
Select a relation from the list of available relation. The is present is a unary relation
which is true if the selected field is present in a packet. All other listed relations are
binary relations which require additional data (e.g. a Value to match) to complete.
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When you select a field from the field name list and select a binary relation (such as the equality relation
==) you will be given the opportunity to enter a value, and possibly some range information.
Value
You may enter an appropriate value in the Value text box. The Value will
also indicate the type of value for the field name you have selected (like
character string).
Predefined values
Some of the protocol fields have predefined values available, much like
enum's in C. If the selected protocol field has such values defined, you can
choose one of them here.
Range
OK
When you have built a satisfactory expression click OK and a filter string
will be built for you.
Cancel
You can leave the Add Expression... dialog box without any effect by
clicking the Cancel
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Note!
The mechanisms for defining and saving capture filters and display filters are almost
identical. So both will be described here, differences between these two will be marked as
such.
Warning!
You must use Save to save your filters permanently. Ok or Apply will not save the filters,
so they will be lost when you close Ethereal.
Figure 6.8. The "Capture Filters" and "Display Filters" dialog boxes
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New
This button adds a new filter to the list of filters. The currently entered values from Filter name and Filter string will be used. If any of these fields are
empty, it will be set to "new".
Delete
This button deletes the selected filter. It will be greyed out, if no filter is selected.
Filter
You can select a filter from this list (which will fill in the filter name and filter string in the fields down the bottom of the dialog box).
Filter name:
You can change the name of the currently selected filter here.
Note!
The filter name will only be used in this dialog to identify the
filter for your convenience, it will not be used elsewhere. You
can add multiple filters with the same name, but this is not
very useful.
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Filter string:
You can change the filter string of the currently selected filter here. Display
Filter only: the string will be syntax checked while you are typing.
Add Expression...
Display Filter only: This button brings up the Add Expression dialog box
which assists in building filter strings. You can find more information about
the Add Expression dialog in Section 6.4, The "Filter Expression" dialog
box
OK
Display Filter only: This button applies the selected filter to the current display and closes the dialog.
Apply
Display Filter only: This button applies the selected filter to the current display, and keeps the dialog open.
Save
Save the current settings in this dialog. The file location and format is explained in Appendix A, Configuration (and other) Files and Folders.
Close
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Display filter
Simply enter a display filter string into the Filter: field, select a direction, and click on OK.
For example, to find the three way handshake for a connection from host 192.168.0.1, use the following filter string:
ip.addr==192.168.0.1 and tcp.flags.syn
For more details on display filters, see Section 6.2, Filtering packets while viewing
Hex Value
Search for a specific byte sequence in the packet data.
For example, use "00:00" to find the next packet including two null bytes in the packet data.
String
117
Up
Search upwards in the packet list (decreasing packet numbers).
Down
Search downwards in the packet list (increasing packet numbers).
118
This dialog box will let you enter a packet number. When you press OK, Ethereal will jump to that
packet.
Note!
As these protocol fields now work like links (just as in your Web browser), it's easier to
simply double-click on the field to jump to the corresponding field.
119
Warning!
The packet marks are not stored in the capture file or anywhere else, so all packet marks
will be lost if you close the capture file.
You can use packet marking to control the output of packets when saving/exporting/printing. To do so,
an option in the packet range is available, see Section 5.8, The Packet Range frame.
There are three functions to manipulate the marked state of a packet:
These mark function are available from the "Edit" menu, and the "Mark packet (toggle)" function is also
available from the pop-up menu of the "Packet List" pane.
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Time of Day, e.g. 20:02:48.863096 The absolute time of the day when the packet was captured.
Date and Time of Day, e.g. 2004-06-22 20:02:48.863096 The absolute date and time of the day
when the packet was captured.
Seconds Since Beginning of Capture, e.g. 123.299139 The time relative to the start of the capture
file or the first "Time Reference" before this packet (see Section 6.9.1, Packet time referencing).
Seconds Since Previous Packet, e.g. 1.162423 The time relative to the previous packet.
The time format can be selected from the View menu, see Figure 3.5, The "View" Menu.
XXX - how is the GMT / localtime thing handled.
Warning!
The time references will not be saved permanently and will be lost when you close the capture file.
Note!
Time referencing will only be useful, if the time display format is set to "Seconds Since
Beginning of Capture". If one of the other time display formats are used, time referencing
will have no effect (and will make no sense either).
To work with time references, choose one of the "Time Reference" items in the "Edit" menu , see Section 3.6, The "Edit" menu, or from the pop-up menu of the "Packet List" pane.
Set Time Reference (toggle) Toggles the time reference state of the currently selected packet to on
or off.
Find Next Find the next time referenced packet in the "Packet List" pane.
Find Previous Find the previous time referenced packet in the "Packet List" pane.
A time referenced packet will be marked with the string *REF* in the Time column (see packet number
10). All subsequent packets will show the time since the last time reference.
122
123
124
Advanced Features
2.
3.
Direction Choose the stream direction to be displayed ("Entire conversation", "data from A to B
only" or "data from B to A only").
125
Advanced Features
4.
Filter out this stream Apply a display filter removing the current TCP stream data from the display.
5.
You can then choose to view the data in one of the following formats:
1.
ASCII. In this view you see the data from each end in ASCII, but alternating according to when
each end sent data. Unfortunately, non-printing characters do not print.
2.
3.
HEX Dump. This allows you to see all the data, but you lose the ability to read it in ASCII.
4.
C Arrays. This allows you to import the stream data into your own C program.
5.
Raw. This allows you to load the unaltered stream data into a different program for further examination.
Note!
It is worthwhile noting that Follow TCP Stream installs a filter to select all the packets in
the TCP stream you have selected.
126
Advanced Features
Tip!
Ethereal calls this mechanism reassembling, although a specific protocol specification
might use a different term for this.
Note!
Reassembling might take place in several protocol layers, so it's possible that multiple tabs
in the "Packet Bytes" pane appear.
Note!
You will find the reassembled data in the last packet of the chunk.
An example: In a HTTP GET response, the requested data (e.g. a HTML page) is returned. Ethereal will
show the hex dump of the data in a new tab "Uncompressed entity body" in the "Packet Bytes" pane.
the lower level protocol (e.g., TCP) must support reassembly. Often this reassembly can be enabled
or disabled via the protocol preferences.
2.
the higher level protocol (e.g., HTTP) must use the reassembly mechanism to reassemble fragmented protocol data. This too can often be enabled or disabled via the protocol preferences.
The tooltip of the higher level protocol setting will note you if and which lower level protocol setting
has to be considered too.
127
Advanced Features
Note!
You may see packets to/from your machine in your capture file, which are caused by name
resolution network services (e.g. DNS packets).
Note!
The resolved names are not stored in the capture file or somewhere else, so the resolved
names might not be available if you open the capture file later or on a different machine.
Tip!
The name resolution in the packet list is done while the list is filled. If a name could be resolved after a packet was added to the list, that entry won't be changed. As the name resolution results are cached, you can use "View/Reload" to rebuild the packet list, this time
with the correctly resolved names.
The name resolution feature can be en-/disabled separately for the following protocol layers (in brackets):
Advanced Features
Warning!
Enabling network name resolution when your name server is unavailable may significantly
slow down Ethereal while it waits for all of the name server requests to time out. Use
ADNS in that case.
DNS vs. ADNS here's a short comparison: Both mechanisms are used to convert an IP address to some
human readable (domain) name. The usual DNS call gethostname() will try to convert the address to a
name. To do this, it will first ask the systems hosts file (e.g. /etc/hosts) if it finds a matching entry. If that
fails, it will ask the configured DNS server(s) about the name.
So the real difference between DNS and ADNS comes when the system has to wait for the DNS server
about a name resolution. The system call gethostname() will wait until a name is resolved or an error occurs. If the DNS server is unavailable, this might take quite a while (several seconds). The ADNS service will work a bit differently. It will also ask the DNS server, but it won't wait for the answer. It will
just return to Ethereal in a very short amount of time. XXX - what does happen with the actual address
field at that run? Will the response be ignored for that field?
hosts name resolution (hosts file) If DNS name resolution failed, Ethereal will try to convert an IP address to the hostname associated with it, using an hosts file provided by the user (e.g. 65.208.228.223 ->
www.ethereal.com).
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Advanced Features
130
Chapter 8. Statistics
8.1. Introduction
Ethereal provides a wide range of network statistics.
These statistics range from general information about the loaded capture file (like the number of captured packets), to statistics about specific protocols (e.g. statistics about the number of HTTP requests
and responses captured).
General statistics:
Note!
The protocol specific statistics requires detailed knowledge about the specific protocol.
Unless you are familiar with that protocol, statistics about it will be pretty hard to understand.
131
Statistics
132
Statistics
Time the timestamps when the first and the last packet were capturing (and the time between them).
133
Statistics
Capture information from the time when the capture was done (only available if the packet data was
captured from the network and not loaded from a file).
Traffic some statistics of the network traffic seen. If a display filter is set, you will see values in
both columns. The values in the Captured column will remain the same as before, while the values
in the Displayed column will reflect the values corresponding to the packets shown in the display.
134
Statistics
This is a tree of all the protocols in the capture. You can collapse or expand subtrees, by clicking on the
plus / minus icons. By default, all trees are expanded.
Each row contains the statistical values of one protocol.
The following columns containing the statistical values are available:
% Packets the percentage of protocol packets, relative to all packets in the capture
End Packets the absolute number of packets of this protocol (where this protocol were the highest
protocol to decode)
135
Statistics
End Bytes the absolute number of bytes of this protocol (where this protocol were the highest protocol to decode)
End MBit/s the bandwidth of this protocol, relative to the capture time (where this protocol were the
highest protocol to decode)
Note!
Packets will usually contain multiple protocols, so more than one protocol will be counted
for each packet. Example: In the screenshot IP has 99,17% and TCP 85,83% (which is together much more than 100%).
Note!
A single packet can contain the same protocol more than once. In this case, the protocol is
counted more than once. For example: in some tunneling configurations the IP layer can
appear twice.
136
Statistics
8.4. Endpoints
Statistics of the endpoints captured.
Tip!
If you are looking for a feature other network tools call a hostlist, here is the right place to
look. The list of Ethernet or IP endpoints is usually what you're looking for.
TCP a TCP endpoint is a combination of the IP address and the TCP port used, so different TCP
ports on the same IP address are different TCP endpoints.
Token Ring a Token Ring endpoint is identical to the Token Ring MAC address.
UDP a UDP endpoint is a combination of the IP address and the UDP port used, so different UDP
ports on the same IP address are different UDP endpoints.
137
Statistics
For each supported protocol, a tab is shown in this window. The tab labels shows the number of endpoints captured (e.g. the tab label "Ethernet: 5" tells you that five ethernet endpoints have been captured). If no endpoints of a specific protocol were captured, the tab label will be grayed out (although the
related page can still be selected).
Each row in the list shows the statistical values for exactly one endpoint.
Name resolution will be done if selected in the window and if it is active for the specific protocol layer
(MAC layer for the selected Ethernet endpoints page). As you might have noticed, the first row has a
name resolution of the first three bytes "Netgear", the second row's address was resolved to an IP address (using ARP) and the third was resolved to a broadcast (unresolved this would still be:
ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff), the last two Ethernet addresses remain unresolved.
Tip!
This window will be updated frequently, so it will be useful, even if you open it before (or
while) you are doing a live capture.
138
Statistics
8.5. Conversations
Statistics of the captured conversations.
139
Statistics
Graphs
Graph 1-5 enable the graph 1-5 (only graph 1 is enabled by default)
Filter: a display filter for this graph (only the packets that pass this filter will be taken into account for that graph)
X Axis
140
Statistics
Y Axis
141
Statistics
DCE-RPC
Fibre Channel
H.225 RAS
LDAP
MGCP
ONC-RPC
SMB
Note!
The other Service Response Time windows will work the same way (or only slightly different) compared to the following description.
142
Statistics
You can optionally set a display filter, to reduce the amount of packets.
Each row corresponds to a method of the interface selected (so the EPM interface in version 3 has 7
methods). For each method the number of calls, and the statistics of the SRT time is calculated.
143
Statistics
144
Statistics
145
146
Customizing Ethereal
files:value
Customizing Ethereal
:val
filesizeue
files:value
Win32 only: set capture buffer size (in MB, default is 1MB). This
is used by the the capture driver to buffer packet data until that
data can be written to disk. If you encounter packet drops while
capturing, try to increase this size.
-f <capture filter>
-g <packet number>
-h
The -h option requests Ethereal to print its version and usage instructions (as shown above) and exit.
-i <capture interface>
-k
The -k option specifies that Ethereal should start capturing packets immediately. This option requires the use of the -i parameter
to specify the interface that packet capture will occur from.
148
Customizing Ethereal
-l
-L
List the data link types supported by the interface and exit.
-m <font>
This option sets the name of the font used for most text displayed
by Ethereal. XXX - add an example!
-n
-o <preference/recent settings>
-o
Tip!
You can get a list of all available preference strings
from the preferences file, see Appendix A, Configuration (and other) Files and Folders.
-p
Don't put the interface into promiscuous mode. Note that the interface might be in promiscuous mode for some other reason;
hence, -p cannot be used to ensure that the only traffic that is captured is traffic sent to or from the machine on which Ethereal is
running, broadcast traffic, and multicast traffic to addresses received by that machine.
-Q
-r <infile>
149
Customizing Ethereal
-s <capture snaplen>
-S
This option specifies that Ethereal will display packets as it captures them. This is done by capturing in one process and displaying them in a separate process. This is the same as "Update list of
packets in real time" in the Capture Options dialog box.
This option sets the format of packet timestamps that are displayed in the packet list window. The format can be one of:
d delta, which specifies that timestamps are relative to the previous packet.
-v
The -v option requests Ethereal to print out its version information and exit.
-w <savefile>
This option sets the name of the savefile to be used when saving a
capture file.
If a capture is started from the command line with -k, set the data
link type to use while capturing packets. The values reported by L are the values that can be used.
-z <statistics-string>
150
Customizing Ethereal
Tip!
You will find a lot of Coloring Rule examples at the Ethereal Wiki Coloring Rules page
at http://wiki.ethereal.com/ColoringRules.
To colorize packets, select the Coloring Rules... menu item from the View menu, Ethereal will pop up
the "Coloring Rules" dialog box as shown in Figure 9.1, The "Coloring Rules" dialog box.
Once the Coloring Rules dialog box is up, there are a number of buttons you can use, depending on
whether or not you have any color filters installed already.
Note!
You will need to carefully select the order the coloring rules are listed (and thus applied) as
they are applied in order from top to bottom. So, more specific rules need to be listed before more general rules. For example, if you have a color rule for UDP before the one for
DNS, the color rule for DNS will never be applied (as DNS uses UDP, so the UDP rule
will be matching first).
If this is the first time you have used Coloring Rules, click on the New button which will bring up the
Edit color filter dialog box as shown in Figure 9.2, The "Edit Color Filter" dialog box.
151
Customizing Ethereal
In the Edit Color dialog box, simply enter a name for the color filter, and enter a filter string in the Filter
text field. Figure 9.2, The "Edit Color Filter" dialog box shows the values arp and arp which means
that the name of the color filter is arp and the filter will select protocols of type arp. Once you have
entered these values, you can choose a foreground and background color for packets that match the filter
expression. Click on Foreground color... or Background color... to achieve this and Ethereal will pop
up the Choose foreground/background color for protocol dialog box as shown in Figure 9.3, The
"Choose color" dialog box.
152
Customizing Ethereal
Select the color you desire for the selected packets and click on OK.
Note!
You must select a color in the colorbar next to the colorwheel to load values into the RGB
values. Alternatively, you can set the values to select the color you want.
Figure 9.4, Using color filters with Ethereal shows an example of several color filters being used in
Ethereal. You may not like the color choices, however, feel free to choose your own.
153
Customizing Ethereal
154
Customizing Ethereal
Note!
Disabling a protocol will prevent information about higher-layer protocols from being displayed. For example, suppose you disabled the IP protocol and selected a packet containing Ethernet, IP, TCP, and HTTP information. The Ethernet information would be displayed, but the IP, TCP and HTTP information would not - disabling IP would prevent it
and the other protocols from being displayed.
155
Customizing Ethereal
To disable or enable a protocol, simply click on it using the mouse or press the space bar when the protocol is highlighted.
Warning!
You have to use the Save button to save your settings. The OK or Apply buttons will not
save your changes permanently, so they will be lost when Ethereal is closed.
You can choose from the following actions:
1.
Customizing Ethereal
2.
3.
4.
5.
Apply Apply the changes and keep the dialog box open.
6.
Save Save the settings to the disabled_protos, see Appendix A, Configuration (and other) Files and
Folders for details.
7.
The content of this dialog box depends on the selected packet when it was opened.
Warning!
157
Customizing Ethereal
The user specified decodes can not be saved. If you quit Ethereal, these settings will be
lost.
1.
2.
3.
Link/Network/Transport Specify the network layer at which "Decode As" should take place.
Which of these pages are available, depends on the content of the selected packet when this dialog
box was opened.
4.
Show Current Open a dialog box showing the current list of user specified decodes.
5.
OK Apply the currently selected decode and close the dialog box.
6.
Apply Apply the currently selected decode and keep the dialog box open.
7.
158
Customizing Ethereal
1.
2.
159
Customizing Ethereal
9.5. Preferences
There are a number of preferences you can set. Simply select the Preferences... menu item from the Edit
menu, and Ethereal will pop up the Preferences dialog box as shown in Figure 9.8, The preferences dialog box, with the "User Interface" page as default. On the left side is a tree where you can select the
page to be shown.
Note!
Preference settings are added frequently. For a recent explanation of the preference pages
and their settings have a look at the Ethereal Wiki Preferences page at http://wiki.ethereal.com/Preferences.
Warning!
The OK or Apply button will not save the preference settings, you'll have to save the settings by clicking the Save button.
The OK button will apply the preferences settings and close the dialog.
The Apply button will apply the preferences settings and keep the dialog open.
The Save button will apply the preferences settings, save the settings on the harddisk and keep the
dialog open.
The Cancel button will restore all preferences settings to the last saved state.
160
Customizing Ethereal
161
Customizing Ethereal
162
Tip
A list of the folders Ethereal actually uses can be found under the Folders tab in the dialog
box coming up, when you select About Ethereal from the Help menu.
The content format of the configuration files is the same on all platforms. However, to match the different policies for unix and windows platforms, different folders for these files are used.
Description
Unix/Linux
folders
Windows folders
preferences
recent
cfilters
Capture filters.
$HOME/.ethereal/ %ETHEREAL%\cfilters,
cfilters
%APPDATA%\Ethereal\cfilters
dfilters
Display filters.
$HOME/.ethereal/ %ETHEREAL%\dfilters,
dfilters
%APPDATA%\Ethereal\dfilters
colorfilters
Coloring rules.
$HOME/.ethereal/ %ETHEREAL%\colorfilters,
colorfilters
%APPDATA%\Ethereal\colorfilters
disabled_protos
Disabled
cols.
ethers
manuf
hosts
ipxnets
plugins
Plugin directories. /
usr/
share/ethereal/plugins,
usr/local/
%ETHEREAL%\manuf
%ETHEREAL%\plugins\<version>,
%APPDATA%\Ethereal\plugins
/
163
Description
Unix/Linux
folders
Windows folders
share/ethereal/plugins,
$HOME/.ethereal/
plugins
temp
Temporary files.
Environment:
TMPDIR
Windows folders
%APPDATA% points to the personal configuration folder, typically C:\Documents
and Settings\<username>\Application Data (for further details, have a
look at Section A.1.1, Windows profiles), %ETHEREAL% points to the Ethereal program folder, typically C:\Program Files\Ethereal
Unix/Linux folders
The /etc folder is the global Ethereal configuration folder. The folder actually used on
your system may vary, maybe something like: /usr/local/etc.
preferences/ethereal.conf
recent
This file contains various GUI related settings like the main window position and size, the recent files list and such. It is a simple
text file containing statements of the form:
variable: value
It is read at program start and written at program exit.
cfilters
This file contains all the capture filters that you have defined and
saved. It consists of one or more lines, where each line has the
following format:
"<filter name>" <filter string>
The settings from this file are read in at program start and written
to disk when you press the Save button in the "Capture Filters"
dialog box.
164
dfilters
This file contains all the display filters that you have defined and
saved. It consists of one or more lines, where each line has the
following format:
"<filter name>" <filter string>
The settings from this file are read in at program start and written
to disk when you press the Save button in the "Display Filters"
dialog box.
colorfilters
This file contains all the color filters that you have defined and
saved. It consists of one or more lines, where each line has the
following format:
@<filter name>@<filter string>
@[<bg RGB(16-bit)>][<fg RGB(16-bit)>]
The settings from this file are read in at program start and written
to disk when you press the Save button in the "Coloring Rules"
dialog box.
disabled_protos
Each line in this file specifies a disabled protocol name. The following are some examples:
tcp
udp
The settings from this file are read in at program start and written
to disk when you press the Save button in the "Enabled Protocols"
dialog box.
ethers
Broadcast
TR_broadcast
Freds_machine
The settings from this file are read in at program start and never
written by Ethereal.
manuf
net address into a manufacturers name. This file has the same
format as the ethers file, except addresses are three bytes long.
An example is:
00:00:01 Xerox
# XEROX CORPORATION
The settings from this file are read in at program start and never
written by Ethereal.
hosts
The settings from this file are read in at program start and never
written by Ethereal.
ipxnets
HR
CEO
IT_Server1
FileServer3
The settings from this file are read in at program start and never
written by Ethereal.
plugins folder
temp folder
If you start a new capture and don't specify a filename for it, Ethereal uses this directory to place that file in, see Section 4.6,
Capture files and file modes.
Here you will find some details about the folders used in Ethereal on different Windows versions.
As already mentioned, you can find the currently used folders in the About Ethereal dialog.
Note!
If you upgraded to a new windows version, your profile might be kept in the former location, so the defaults mentioned here might not apply.
The following will try to guide you to the right place where to look for Ethereals profile data.
95/98/ME
The default in Windows 95/98/ME is: all users work with the
same
profile,
which
is
located
at:
C:\windows\Application Data\Ethereal
NT 4
C:\WINNT\Profiles\<username>\Application
Data\Ethereal
2000/XP
C:\Documents
and
Settings\<username>\Application Data, "Documents
and Settings" and "Application Data" might be internationalized.
168
169
protocols
170
and
protocol
fields
can
be
found
at:
ht-
171
Note!
tcpdump is not part of the Ethereal distribution. You can get it from: http://www.tcpdump.org for various platforms.
172
173
174
This option specifies that the frames listed should be kept, not deleted. The default is to delete the listed frames.
-h
-v
-T {encap type}
-F {capture type}
This option specifies the capture file format to write the output
file in.
The default is libpcap format.
-s {snaplen}
-t {time adjustment}
{infile}
{outfile}
[record#[-][record# ...]]
This optional parameter specifies the records to include or exclude (depending on the -r option. You can specify individual records or a range of records.
177
tr - Token Ring
slip - SLIP
ppp - PPP
fddi - FDDI
fddi-swapped - FDDI with bit-swapped MAC addresses
rawip - Raw IP
arcnet - ARCNET
arcnet_linux - Linux ARCNET
atm-rfc1483 - RFC 1483 ATM
linux-atm-clip - Linux ATM CLIP
lapb - LAPB
atm-pdus - ATM PDUs
atm-pdus-untruncated - ATM PDUs - untruncated
null - NULL
ascend - Lucent/Ascend access equipment
isdn - ISDN
ip-over-fc - RFC 2625 IP-over-Fibre Channel
ppp-with-direction - PPP with Directional Info
ieee-802-11 - IEEE 802.11 Wireless LAN
prism - IEEE 802.11 plus Prism II monitor mode header
ieee-802-11-radio - IEEE 802.11 Wireless LAN with radio information
ieee-802-11-bsd - IEEE 802.11 plus BSD WLAN header
ieee-802-11-avs - IEEE 802.11 plus AVS WLAN header
linux-sll - Linux cooked-mode capture
frelay - Frame Relay
frelay-with-direction - Frame Relay with Directional Info
chdlc - Cisco HDLC
ios - Cisco IOS internal
ltalk - Localtalk
pflog-old - OpenBSD PF Firewall logs, pre-3.4
hhdlc - HiPath HDLC
docsis - Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification
cosine - CoSine L2 debug log
whdlc - Wellfleet HDLC
sdlc - SDLC
tzsp - Tazmen sniffer protocol
enc - OpenBSD enc(4) encapsulating interface
pflog - OpenBSD PF Firewall logs
chdlc-with-direction - Cisco HDLC with Directional Info
bluetooth-h4 - Bluetooth H4
mtp2 - SS7 MTP2
mtp3 - SS7 MTP3
irda - IrDA
user0 - USER 0
user1 - USER 1
user2 - USER 2
user3 - USER 3
user4 - USER 4
user5 - USER 5
user6 - USER 6
user7 - USER 7
user8 - USER 8
user9 - USER 9
user10 - USER 10
user11 - USER 11
user12 - USER 12
user13 - USER 13
user14 - USER 14
user15 - USER 15
symantec - Symantec Enterprise Firewall
ap1394 - Apple IP-over-IEEE 1394
bacnet-ms-tp - BACnet MS/TP
default is the same as the first input file
-F <capture type> capture file type to write:
179
-h
-v
-a
Causes the frame timestamps to be ignored, writing all packets from the first input file followed by
all packets from the second input file. By default, when -a is not specified, the contents of the input
files are merged in chronological order based on each frame's timestamp. Note: when merging,
mergecap assumes that packets within a capture file are already in chronological order.
-s
-w
-T
-F
A simple example merging dhcp-capture.libpcap and imap-1.libpcap into outfile.libpcap is shown below.
180
00
5a
03
ee
03
16
01
e0
a0
68
33
80
a2
01
1e
b9
00
0f
94
0a
0f
a7
12
00
19
04
00
19
05
08
00
08
00
03
03
6f
00
00
7f
00
50
80
00
46
0a
0f
10
00
11
10
00
2e
19
01
0c
01
........
........
........
........
........
........
........
There is no limit on the width or number of bytes per line. Also the text dump at the end of the line is ignored. Bytes/hex numbers can be uppercase or lowercase. Any text before the offset is ignored, including email forwarding characters '>'. Any lines of text between the bytestring lines is ignored. The offsets
are used to track the bytes, so offsets must be correct. Any line which has only bytes without a leading
offset is ignored. An offset is recognized as being a hex number longer than two characters. Any text
after the bytes is ignored (e.g. the character dump). Any hex numbers in this text are also ignored. An
offset of zero is indicative of starting a new packet, so a single text file with a series of hexdumps can be
converted into a packet capture with multiple packets. Multiple packets are read in with timestamps differing by one second each. In general, short of these restrictions, text2pcap is pretty liberal about reading
in hexdumps and has been tested with a variety of mangled outputs (including being forwarded through
email multiple times, with limited line wrap etc.)
There are a couple of other special features to note. Any line where the first non-whitespace character is
'#' will be ignored as a comment. Any line beginning with #TEXT2PCAP is a directive and options can
be inserted after this command to be processed by text2pcap. Currently there are no directives implemented; in the future, these may be used to give more fine grained control on the dump and the way it
should be processed e.g. timestamps, encapsulation type etc.
Text2pcap also allows the user to read in dumps of application-level data, by inserting dummy L2, L3
and L4 headers before each packet. The user can elect to insert Ethernet headers, Ethernet and IP, or
Ethernet, IP and UDP headers before each packet. This allows Ethereal or any other full-packet decoder
to handle these dumps.
181
Usage: text2pcap.exe [-h] [-d] [-q] [-o h|o] [-l typenum] [-e l3pid] [-i proto]
[-m max-packet] [-u srcp,destp] [-T srcp,destp] [-s srcp,destp,tag]
[-S srcp,destp,tag] [-t timefmt] <input-filename> <output-filename>
where <input-filename> specifies input filename (use - for standard input)
<output-filename> specifies output filename (use - for standard output)
[options] are one or more of the following
-h
-d
-o hex|oct
-l typenum
:
:
:
:
-q
-e l3pid
:
:
-i proto
-m max-packet
-u srcp,destp
:
:
-T srcp,destp
-s srcp,dstp,tag:
-S srcp,dstp,ppi:
-t timefmt
-w <filename>
-h
-d
-q
-o hex|oct
Specify the radix for the offsets (hex or octal). Defaults to hex. This cor182
Specify the link-layer type of this packet. Default is Ethernet(1). See net/
bpf.h for the complete list of possible encapsulations. Note that this option should be used if your dump is a complete hex dump of an encapsulated packet and you wish to specify the exact type of encapsulation. Example: -l 7 for ARCNet packets.
-e l3pid
Include a dummy Ethernet header before each packet. Specify the L3PID
for the Ethernet header in hex. Use this option if your dump has Layer 3
header and payload (e.g. IP header), but no Layer 2 encapsulation. Example: -e 0x806 to specify an ARP packet.
For IP packets, instead of generating a fake Ethernet header you can also
use -l 12 to indicate a raw IP packet to Ethereal. Note that -l 12 does not
work for any non-IP Layer 3 packet (e.g. ARP), whereas generating a
dummy Ethernet header with -e works for any sort of L3 packet.
-u srcport destport
Include dummy UDP headers before each packet. Specify the source and
destination UDP ports for the packet in decimal. Use this option if your
dump is the UDP payload of a packet but does not include any UDP, IP
or Ethernet headers. Note that this automatically includes appropriate
Ethernet and IP headers with each packet. Example: -u 1000 69 to make
the packets look like TFTP/UDP packets.
183
This document
ethereal_be.py
ethereal_gen.py
idl2eth
A simple shell script wrapper that the end user should use to generate the dissector from the IDL file(s).
2.
omniidl from the the omniORB package must be available. See http://omniorb.sourceforge.net/
3.
Of course you need ethereal installed to compile the code and tweak it if required. idl2eth is part of
the standard Ethereal distribution
184
To use idl2eth to generate an ethereal dissector from an idl file use the following procedure:
<your file.idl>
eg:
idl2eth echo.idl
2.
If you don't want to use the shell script wrapper, then try steps 3 or 4 instead.
3.
eg:
omniidl
4.
-p ./ -b ethereal_be echo.idl
You may wish to comment out the register_giop_user_module() code and that will leave you with
heuristic dissection.
5.
Copy the resulting C code to your ethereal src directory, edit the 2 make files to include the packettest-idl.c
cp packet-test-idl.c /dir/where/ethereal/lives/
edit Makefile.am
edit Makefile.nmake
6.
Run configure
./configure (or ./autogen.sh)
7.
185
8.
Good Luck !!
C.8.4. TODO
1.
2.
Enums not converted to symbolic values (yet), but can be added manually.
3.
4.
C.8.5. Limitations
See the TODO list inside packet-giop.c
C.8.6. Notes
1.
The "-p ./" option passed to omniidl indicates that the ethereal_be.py and ethereal_gen.py are residing in the current directory. This may need tweaking if you place these files somewhere else.
2.
If it complains about being unable to find some modules (eg tempfile.py), you may want to check if
PYTHONPATH is set correctly. On my Linux box, it is PYTHONPATH=/usr/lib/python1.5/
186
187
this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such
parties remain in full compliance.
5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not
signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or
distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are
prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by
modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the
Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and
all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying
the Program or works based on it.
6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the
Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the
original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to
these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further
restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.
You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to
this License.
7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent
infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues),
conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or
otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not
excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot
distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this
License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you
may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent
license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by
all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then
the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to
refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.
If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under
any particular circumstance, the balance of the section is intended to
apply and the section as a whole is intended to apply in other
circumstances.
It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any
patents or other property right claims or to contest validity of any
such claims; this section has the sole purpose of protecting the
integrity of the free software distribution system, which is
implemented by public license practices. Many people have made
generous contributions to the wide range of software distributed
through that system in reliance on consistent application of that
system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or she is willing
to distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot
impose that choice.
This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to
be a consequence of the rest of this License.
8. If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in
certain countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the
original copyright holder who places the Program under this License
may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding
those countries, so that distribution is permitted only in or among
countries not thus excluded. In such case, this License incorporates
the limitation as if written in the body of this License.
9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions
of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will
be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to
address new problems or concerns.
191
program. It is safest
to most effectively
should have at least
full notice is found.
<one line to give the program's name and a brief idea of what it does.>
Copyright (C) <year> <name of author>
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
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You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307
USA
Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail.
If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this
when it starts in an interactive mode:
Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) year name of author
Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type `show w'.
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
under certain conditions; type `show c' for details.
The hypothetical commands `show w' and `show c' should show the appropriate
parts of the General Public License. Of course, the commands you use may
be called something other than `show w' and `show c'; they could even be
mouse-clicks or menu items--whatever suits your program.
You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or your
school, if any, to sign a "copyright disclaimer" for the program, if
necessary. Here is a sample; alter the names:
Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright interest in the program
`Gnomovision' (which makes passes at compilers) written by James Hacker.
<signature of Ty Coon>, 1 April 1989
Ty Coon, President of Vice
This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into
proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library, you may
consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications with the
library. If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Library General
Public License instead of this License.
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